Chelsea finally unveiled Moises Caicedo as their club-record signing on Monday (August 14) after a crazy transfer saga full of twists and turns, but there was something cool about their unveil video that thrilled a lot of fans – including the sick tune and discreet digs at Liverpool.
The Blues had been negotiating with Brighton & Hove Albion for a long, long time in an attempt to sign the quality midfielder as the ideal partner for their previous record-signing, Enzo Fernandez. They had some initial bids rejected, including an £80 million one, with the Seagulls adamant at receiving at least £100 million to sell him after seeing West Ham United sell Declan Rice for that amount earlier in the summer.
Chelsea actually didn’t want to pay that much and continued negotiations in an attempt to bring that down. And then Liverpool entered the race. The Reds had a £110 million bid for him accepted by Brighton and Jurgen Klopp also confirmed this.
Just as it looked like Caicedo would be joining Liverpool, he ended up rejecting them in the 11th hour. Soon after, Chelsea agreed to sign him for £115 million, helping Brighton make over 10 times the money they had signed him for in 2021.
The afrobeat song used for Moises Caicedo unveil
The Blues have been boasting over their ‘victory’ over Liverpool in signing Caicedo ever since they formally announced him as their newest player. This included quoting the midfielder as saying, ‘I am so excited to be here at this big club and I didn’t have to think twice when Chelsea called me, I just knew I wanted to sign for the club,’ in a dig at the Reds.
But the London giants decided to formally announce his arrival with a sweet little video across their social media platforms. The video showed Caicedo joining his mother to pose in a Chelsea shirt at the back of a car, imitating a picture he had taken in the past in Ecuador, wearing a former Chelsea home kit.
They backed it up with a slick song that had a really cool tune that got fans talking. That was because Chelsea decided to use a hit track from Nigerian rapper ‘Pheelz’ (ft Bnxn) named ‘Finesse’. Released in March, 2022 – the song is a major TikTok hit and also impressed on the rap charts across the US and UK.
Indeed, ‘Finesse’ actually reached the no.1 spot in the US Global charts as well as the no.1 in the UK Afrobeats charts. It debuted at no.1 in the Nigeria Spotify top 50 charts upon its release and its slick beats made it a hit among the social media platforms too.
Two ways Chelsea trolled Liverpool in Caicedo unveil
The song is allegedly about ‘a person who lives a fast life and advises another person not to fall in love with her because she will eventually break his heart.’ However, the broader meaning that Chelsea might want to indicate by using the song ‘Finesse’ is to boast how they finessed (a termed defined by Cambridge dictionary as ‘to deal with a situation or a person in a skilful and often slightly dishonest way’) Liverpool and got one over them in the Caicedo transfer saga.
By the way, the song in that Caicedo announcement video is called ‘Finesse’ by Pheelz.
This is not the only dig that they took at their Premier League foes.
It appears that in another separate video in which they boasted about Caicedo’s achievements, the Chelsea video editor also posted a picture of a cancelled train ticket to Liverpool. This was a clear reference to how the Ecuadorian star rejected a move to Liverpool to join them instead.
Chelsea hailed for choice of music
Chelsea have also been praised by fans for including this slick beat in for the Caicedo unveil video, which has over 35 million views on Twitter alone so far. They’ve been hailed for helping give the slick song more popularity and raising awareness of the up-and-coming Nigerian musician.
The Blues followed up with Arsenal’s decision to use Odumodublvck’s ‘Declan Rice’ in their unveiling video for the midfielder and the two clubs have been praised for using their platforms to promote the African artists. On top of that, how they layered the cheeky digs at their rivals over at Anfield has earned extra brownie points for the Chelsea social media team.
Chelsea will now hope that their grand reception for Caicedo does not fall flat on its face and that the 21-year-old is able to be one of their best performers of the campaign to redeem his crazy value.
